You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. ~Desmond Tutu

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My husband and I attended a nutrition class last week to learn how to take better care for ourselves by choosing to eat wisely. After the class I rushed over to the store and bought all these good healthy fruits and vegetables for us to eat. My family loves eating fruits and vegetables. Our big problem is that we love the luxury of eating all the unhealthy stuff too.

Another issue is that my husband and I are both night owls. Before going to bed we always have something to look up on Facebook, an email to write or, for me, I get a wind of energy and decide to clean the kitchen. Well what happens when you’re still awake long after dinner? You get hungry of course. Staying up late is such a hard habit to break and it is a contributing factor to our unhealthy bodies.

One of my favorite go to snack is Moose Tracks ice cream. It just doesn’t end there because you can’t just eat ice cream. You have to have some type of salty chips to go with it too. Then after you eat all that sugar you probably can’t sleep. So you’ll need have a glass of wine to relax.

Yes, lately this has been the story of my life. As a child, I was that kid that everyone was trying to feed. I was very underweight and didn’t care very much for vegetables. Well actually I really just didn’t care to eat much of anything. That changed once I started having kids. Now that I am much older, my tastes buds have grown to love all types of different food. Ummm… maybe just a little too much. Nowadays the weight from eating all these different foods tend to stick around my waistline and energy is often non-existent. Mostly due to lack of sleep and horrible nutrition.

Well this is a struggle for both myself and my husband. We’ve taken the luxury of eating so much junk food that it has become a lifestyle for ourselves and our children. It’ll be very hard to deny ourselves all the sodium filled chips and sugary ice cream and sodas. I imagine it’ll take us a while to make a complete change in the way we eat and get our bodies back to a healthy state but we must do this for ourselves as well as for our children.

For now, it’s baby steps. We’ll have healthier snacks during the day in small increments. Some examples are portioned 1 oz. cheese, sesame crackers, assorted vegetables and assorted fruits. We’re trying our best to stay away from sodas and chips. I don’t think we want to quite give up the ice cream, or the occasional glass of wine or beer yet but we will aim to have them earlier in the evening and not at 11 pm at night.

While on my quest on researching to eat healthier I did find that you can easily google “How many calories in _________?” and Google will give you the information you need. Such a great tool to have if you want to count the calories you are taking in. Also, here are a few websites that I came across for those interested in adapting to healthier eating.

Having a toddler has made it much more difficult to enjoy eating out as a family. We still go out to eat occasionally with our children but we have been trying to limit ourselves. One of my favorite places to eat at is a local Hawaiian restaurant called Aloha Kitchen in Silverdale, Washington. I often crave eating food from back home and Aloha Kitchen provides some of the best known dishes of Hawaii.

Their Kalua Pork and Cabbage plate (complete with rice and macaroni salad) is my favorite. I’ve made Kalua Pork several times in our oven but it is very time consuming and can be a greasy mess.

A few months ago, we ordered trays of food from their restaurant for our daughters 1st birthday. Our friends and family loved it. This is where I came up with a money saving idea. It will also help save our sanity.

I ordered their largest Kalua Pork and Cabbage party tray for our dinner on Wednesday. It is listed as having 18-25 servings but the tray serves so much more. After eating dinner, were able to package the rest into eight portions that will serve 5-7. We froze the packages and containers for future dinners. The cost was $125 for the large tray. Therefore, each (5-7 servings) portion cost about $14.

Those who feed their family on $3-$5 per meal may think me crazy but this is a dish I crave for often but I really dislike cooking. The $14 for a dinner to feed our family of 6 is a huge savings compare to what it would cost to take our family out to a restaurant to eat. It would normally cost our family $60-$70 to eat at Aloha Kitchen.

We now have 8 more meals in our freezer. We will just need to cook up some rice and throw some veggies in a pot on the stove. This works great for those last minute meals and it sure beats eating at a fast food restaurant.

We will occasionally eat at Aloha Kitchen without children every once in a while to continue supporting their business. We also love purchasing their gift certificates to give away as gifts to friends and family.

Do you have a favorite dish that a restaurant near you could cook up a huge batch for you to freeze into portions?